Cool with me. I’ll be working a long weekend, but I’ll dive back into things next week
Feeling bad, BE, that as yet you’ve had no f/back beyond the acronyms. Perhaps you saw my reply in Article Submission re being on holiday all month and promising to take a look in early May. Hopefully being a rookie and so a member of your intended audience will lead to some worthwhile comments. Will check before commenting whether you are still taking feedback. :-)
Yep. It is just a bad timing.
I hope I will take a deeper look into it. There is a lot of good stuff for sure.
No worries I will just take it as a sign that my guide has been exhaustively comprehensive thus far.
:-D
I dont think any of the ideas discussed above are too terribly controversial though. A Walk through by Nation, or strategy guide to the first round would no doubt elicite stronger opinions. My goal so far was just to set up the scaffolding. We haven’t really started painting yet hehe.
Most of my thoughts on the Russian opening have already been outlined, with some broad strokes for the Allies. So next we’ll look at 42.2 from the German player’s perspective… When I’m less slammed at work.
;)
Okay Black Elk - I could let you have some feedback this week or possibly next - from the perspective of a rookie who remembers his recent experiences of learning the game - or trying to!
Is it too late or do you still want it?
Cheers
PP
For sure man. Anything that keeps the ball rolling. My work week schedule has been fairly, wasn’t able to catch any face to face games in April. Perhaps May will be a more A&A friendly month haha
:-D
Okay BE - I’ll post some feedback here over the next week or so ….
Hi Black Elk
I promised you some feedback from the perspective of someone who has just learned the basics. That starting point makes my comments relevant as your intended audience, but also limited by my current understanding of the game.
First I would like to repeat comments I have made before about enjoying the thread as you created it. I certainly have been dragged to a deeper understanding of some of the fundamentals than I had achieved on my own.
Here is my feedback:
1. It could do with an editor paring it down to essentials. I raised the print version on the board and then copied that into a word document. 56 pages! Took out various unnecessary forum titling, standardised to font 11, excluded the introduction (as it presumably won’t make it to the final document) and still had 45 pages. I believe a good editor could at least halve that. But you might find it hard to like the result.
The above comment is all the more true because you have so very much more to share with us yet, running the risk of an article that is hundreds of pages long.
I would be happy to have a go at editing - using the word review functionality so that you can see exactly what I have done and revise as you see fit - if you wish.
2. I can understand why those that came at 41 from 40 or 42 find 41 an unsatisfying starting point. Reducing the whole of WW2 to an evening game necessitates simplification which A&A experts can find hard to appreciate. However, I started from 41 and found it an excellent basis for moving on to 42, both from the perspective of understanding most of the principles, but also because it is easier to commit yourself and others to a new game that does not take up a whole day.
To be honest, I would much rather learn 42 via 41 than in the way you suggest. It takes about 20 mins to explain the basics of 41 and then straight into gameplay, picking up the exceptions as you go. But given your preference (and no doubt others) to start with 42 perhaps the balanced approach would be to represent the two options - as your audience will include those who start in both ways - and then re-orientate the unit discussions thus far to accommodate a 41 starting point as well as the straight to 42 one. Is that worth consideration?
Again I would be happy to give it a go if you wish.
3. You don’t include factories as a unitÂ, except to mention their AA capability briefly when discussing AAguns. Of course, the rules are a little different for factories as against AAguns, with the latter rolling against a max of 3 bombers. Is there a worthwhile discussion on the value of an IPC purchase vs other expenditure options?
4. You do have a section on bidding. This seems inappropriate to a new player manual. New players will be trying to understand the OOB game. Expert players may decide to give rookies the benefit of starting as Axis, or additional starting units, or something. But that is not a bid.
5. Lastly, some thoughts on what next ….
At this level you would be addressing the fundamental drivers of the game and opening the minds of new players to the strategic challenges they have to address.
There are also a number of useful or otherwise opening moves, such as R1 West Russia, J1 SZ53, UK1 SZ37, etc. These will all have been discussed at length elsewhere and a list of links would be very helpful.
Black Elk - I do hope this has helped. I have tried to give your efforts the attention they deserve. If we do end up with a shorter article, with which it is easier to engage, that may allow further thoughts to come to the fore.
Cheers
PP :-)
Great feedback Private Panic! Thanks for giving it a look over. Its always helpful to get a fresh set of eyes on this stuff. Brevity is probably not my strongest suit, so I’d agree it could use a fair amount of pruning, or some savage machete hack downs in a couple sections. All my posts on these boards tend towards the long side of the force, so if you’re motivated and have a red pen at the ready, I’m game.
;)
2. I like the 1941 game, and can see a definite benefit to using it as an intro. It’s certainly much faster to set up, and the more limited roster selection makes for a quick grab and go playstyle. The only real downside of that board in my view is the limited scale, both for the map and the overall game economy, as well as the total number of unit sculpts included, and this places certain limits on the replay value. I often try to get back into the head-space of the first timer, and recall my experiences when I initially tried to play A&A. I think Axis and Allies is definitely one of the more challenging boardgames to learn and to organize with your friends, so in that respect its nice to have that simplified 1941 game available. On the other hand, I still look to Classic and Revised, as the boards that had me really falling for A&A, and 1942.2 is much closer to these in scope than 1941 is. 1942.2 is the workhorse 5 man board, my go to for multiplayer games. I suppose all I would say, is that if your standing in the gameshop holding both boxes in your hands, trying to decide which one will give you the most bang for your buck, 1941 or 1942, I’d say you’re probably better off dropping a few extra ducats and grabbing 1942.2. Sure its a bit more expensive but its a lot more expansive! You get more sculpts out of the deal, and more chips, a larger map and broader overall layout.
The jump from 1942.2 to the 1940 games is on a whole different order of magnitude, both in terms of the initial cost and the rules overhead, but the choice between 1941 and 1942.2 is something a new player might realistically consider for the price. So I just wanted to put it out there, that I think 1942.2 can be a fine place to start if someone wants to dive right in and skip over 1941. Also there is a certain respect in which I think 1941 is actually a fairly challenging board, despite being billed as “the starter” or “the beginner” map. Its set up time is quick sure, but the scale of the economy and the narrow margins for error that result from the opening set up, can actually make that board quite novel even at a higher level of play. The unique sculpts alone make it a worthwhile investment to A&A players, it’s a cool game to have in your arsenal. So if you can swing it, I say buy both! But if I had to choose one or the other, well
:-D
3. the Factory is a unit which definitely warrants more in depth discussion. Good call. This is something that will need to be included, though I admit it can be rather tricky. The discussion about when to make an investment in additional production is rather less straightforward than with most of the other units. This is because there is a strong “national” component to factory buys. What I mean is that some nations benefit in a disproportionate way from having factories available as a purchasable unit in 1942.2.
The unit is critical for Japan. For the USA, or potentially the UK, it can be a potent option under some specific strategies, but not what I would call essential in the way it usually is for Japan. For Russia and Germany the newly purchased factory is kind of a non-factor, since Russia can’t afford them and Germany doesn’t need them, except under very rare Super G endgame conditions. In 1941 Industrial Complexes do not exist at all as a purchasable unit, and there is no SBR in that game, which may leave the new player who comes to 1942.2 from 1941 scratching their head a bit.
Broadly speaking, what you need to consider as a naval power like Japan, USA or UK, is whether a factory for 15 ipcs invested will get you more (long term) than a loaded transport with an infantry and artillery unit for 14 ipcs would get you.
If you can actually afford to max out a newly purchased factory with units after you buy it, or if the ability to drop units at the front trumps your need for total TUV or attack/defense power (near term) then the purchase may be advisable. Remember that buying a factory means a full round before you can make use of that investment at 15 ipcs. That’s the equivalent of 5 infantry units, or a fully loaded transport, or aircraft that might otherwise be in the fight immediately.
As a general rule, a territory needs to be worth at least 2 ipcs to support a viable factory in 1942.2. Optimal locations for factories in this game are Manchuria, East Indies and Borneo. Also France, though that is a special case, because even though it has a high potential production value at 6 it is also surround by other territories with high existing production and is itself hotly contested by both sides making it much harder to hold reliably. France is usually an endgame thing, if it happens at all.
Somewhat less optimal but still potentially useful are territories like, French IndoChina, Kwangtung, Kiangsu, Philippines Norway, South Africa, Egypt etc. Basically any territory worth 2 or more could be a contender in specific endgame situations. I’ve even seen super G games where they end up buying additional production for sz 16, so I wouldn’t rule anything out there, though I would say that if you’re buying more production than you can utilize effectively on placement, you’re probably shooting yourself in the foot, also worth considering is whether the production actually get you any more effective range than you have out of existing factories. For example, before buying a factory in Brazil or Alaska as USA, it makes sense to ask whether this really gets you any closer to the front, than simply placing units in North America. I have more to say on factories I think than I can cover off the cuff, but you’re right! definitely something we need to ruminate on some more.
:-D
4. It tried to put the bid section last, because I agree with you, new players probably won’t play with a bid. On the other hand, I think its worth knowing what a bid is and how it is used in A&A, even if you don’t employ a bidding process in your own game, if only because its such a common house rule in Axis and Allies. I’ve had a lot of new players in tripleA ask me questions like “what’s a bid?” or “what does bidding mean?” so I figured I’d toss it in there for good measure. This stuff might be inappropriate for new players to use in their first games, but it is relevant to a lot of the discussions on these boards, so at least from that perspective I thought it might worth touching on.
5. Great stuff, lets charge ahead! :-D
We’re already approaching mini-book length here anyway, so might as well gun for something as encyclopedic as possible haha. I guess I’m all for circling around, and rounding em down as we go.
Glad to have been of help BE.
I’ll have a go at editing it down then - aiming at brevity w/out losing insight - and post the result as an attachment here - probably late next week.
Your answer on the factory shows that there is worthwhile stuff to say. I’ll paste that into the shorter document as a placeholder so that you can build on it.
Re bidding - I guess then that it will come at the end of whatever article you end up with, even after the sections yet to be added. I might add some of your words here as to why it is included.
That’s my spare time next week gone then! Thanks for keeping me out of mischief! :-D
Thank you, Black_Elk, for sharing your great, compendium-like ideas about the game in such an entertaining way of writing.
And thank you, Private Panic, for your feedback - which included “editing”.
I must admit, that when I started reading (and I still have by far not finished reading), I at first had a hard time getting all those information from my computer screen. So - as Private Panic - editing thoughts came to my mind.
First I used the Chrome built-in PDF-printer to print the “print-version” of the thread as PDF. This increased readability a lot.
Then I copy-pasted the content into a Word-document and manually did some editing - so did Private Panic.
At a later time I found out that you (BE) edited some content in this thread - so my editing experience started again. ;-)
As writing a “Strategy Guide” is a living process (for a long time) an idea came to my mind:
Why not use Google Docs for this ‘project’?
This would reduce the forum-sided complexity to a single link to the document.
All interested forum members could have read-only access to the latest version of the document, just following the published link.
Write-access can be granted to selected people and attachments would not be needed.
Just my thoughts on the editing-issue. :-)
Don’t know about Google Docs Panther - was going to use Word - but happy to take advice and do what others think best. :-)
BE - tell me if not Word - plus I might need help if Google Docs.
https://www.google.com/intl/en/docs/about/
There are other, similar solutions of course, but this one might be the most popular.
The browser-based user interface is Word-like, but a lot easier.
I am happy to help, if needed. :-)
Edit:
Just a simple example of ‘how it looks like’ when a document is published “read-only”:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12_yY9OEjpoi1cBgHQQ4qHSAwRIMaPTgwrLt9ldszufg/
Well - I followed Panthers first link and created a “1942.2 Axis & Allies Article” document in which I copied and pasted BE’s article from the Print tab here. 62 pages.
Shared with BE using his e-mail address. Can you see it BE?
Would have shared with Panther but I don’t have his e-mail address.
Happy to edit from there next week if this works for BE. Does it?
Anyone else I should share it with while I am editing it?
It will be learning as I go so forgive any errors along the way.
@Private:
Would have shared with Panther but I don’t have his e-mail address.
Happy to edit from there next week if this works for BE. Does it?
Anyone else I should share it with while I am editing it?
It will be learning as I go so forgive any errors along the way.
I’ll send you a PM with my mail address. Thanks :-)
Google doc is great for web collaboration even though functionally it is less powerful as Web. If you guys put in Google Doc I love to contribute too if I have any (thought BE one is pretty complete on its own :-D)
I love this idea! The docs :-D
I was slammed at work and doing mothers day stuff, but I just had a look. So much cleaner already. Fantastic
Catch you guys in a few. Best!
ELK
Google doc is great for web collaboration even though functionally it is less powerful as Web. If you guys put in Google Doc I love to contribute too if I have any (thought BE one is pretty complete on its own :-D)
Hi innohub
Can I beg a few days’ grace to finish my edit task first. When I have a version that BE is happy with I’ll make it available for you to review in whatever way BE prefers.
Cheers
PP
Of course. Looking forward to your great stuff :-D
Also thinking a little bit more on the factory unit. From a purchasing standpoint, the main consideration is probably still total income over anything else. If you have already achieved the maximum transport capacity off your coastal factories, or achieve a level in the ground game where you are making more money than you could reasonably spend at your facilities on the mass infantry spam, it can make sense to buy new production. This is usually only a consideration for the dominant nation on the map. So for example, when a nation achieves about +1/3rd of their starting ipcs in conquered territory, then production buys can be interesting. Usually this factory game is played exclusively between Japan, USA and to a lesser extent UK.
Japan starts with 30 ipcs, when they achieve 40 ipcs a round, it often makes sense to buy new production. Most players will buy this either in a forward territory like East Indies, Borneo or FIC, or the safe territory next to the home sea zone, Manchuria. Once they get up into the mid 50s it might make sense to do this again, to put max ground and especially tanks into Eurasia immediately each round. With 24 ipcs income you can shuck 8 inf units out of Japan. With the support factory you can up this production value to between 10 or 12 ground units a round, 36 ipcs in infantry, with the remainder spent on upgrades to art/armor or on air/naval buys. With India that raises the total production in the region up to potentially 13-15 ground units (if you bought a support factory.) That takes 45 ipcs right there to max spam just infantry, so you really want to be collecting pretty heavy as Japan before you go for the second factory. The older games were a bit different in this respect, because India didn’t have a starting factory back then (Classic, Revised, AA50 etc), and tanks were 1 ipc cheaper. Still expanding 5 production points for a cost of 30 ipcs, to drop 5 extra units per round directly into Asia can be very useful. Or up to 7 units a round for that same cost, if they build out of a money island and Manchuria. Additional factories almost always makes sense for Japan, when they are in the ascendant, the only danger of a factory expansion comes right at the beginning under full KJF conditions, otherwise its generally a strong play.
For USA, starting income is at 42 ipcs. To get them all the way up to the mid 50s in ipcs (using my +1/3rd of starting income shorthand) requires that the Americans have either made a full Pacific press with success, or have begun their landings in Europe. In this situation production can be advisable, especially if you’re taking the money islands from Japan, but sometimes also in a KGF, at a location like Norway.
For UK the situation is a bit more complicated. They start at 31 ipcs, and usually this value will be diminishing. Getting them up into the 40s through luck and perseverance can happen on occasion, but UK is usually cash strapped required to spend everything they can for max placement at existing facilities. But UK can also occasionally benefit from a “bluff buy” or a factory in South Africa, which they can’t afford to fill forever, but which might give them enough of an early mobility advantage to deter Axis forays into Africa. I’ve seen this work, and it was a strong strategy in Classic going back to early SA days, but in the newer boards I think its rather brazen. The UK just has a hard time on this board in early rounds, with everything to do, and never enough money to do it haha.
I said earlier that Russia doesn’t benefit from production buys. I can maybe stretch to imagine rare situations where they might work. Russia starts out at 24. If they get up to 32 ipcs or more per round, like in a full KGF or KJF endgame where the Allies are already totally crushing hehe. The game might be entertaining, but under normal 1942.2 circumstance, never. Germany starts with 41 ipcs, if they get up to around 55 ipcs, again maybe a production buy would work to tilt the balance on the eastern front, or to expand naval production. But again, that seems rare and rather unlikely.
The Factory can also be used as a bait or a draw, if you place one in a contested area of the map, but one where you have a positional advantage. The idea being that the enemy will see you drop the factory and then gun for it, attempting to “steal” your production investment, or get a “free” factory out of the trade. So that’s the bait, trying to draw enemy units into a position where they can be destroyed, or at least distracted. Egypt, SA, Norway and the Pacific money islands can be used this way.
There is also the school of thought that buys factories to lock down some peripheral territory or region, or some specific sea zone. Basically with infantry or destroyer spams. These can help to secure income into the endgame or to secure a defense power or counter attack advantage. East Indies and Borneo seem particularly ideal when used this way. Basically 2 or 3 rounds of solid ground builds, and its nearly impossible for the enemy to retake such islands once they have a factory. Sometimes Japan can take this approach early as a way to secure the income in the Pacific vs a sudden Allied build up.
Other considerations that might come into play with the factory unit are things like blocking actions. A factory is a permanent blocker. Once bought it can’t be removed. This can sometimes make a factory buy on the Eastern Front interesting, in the event that USA or UK takes one of those spaces during a KGF scenario. Provided Germany is not in a position to take and stack it, the factory can prevent certain blitz routes. I’ve seen this happen occasionally in W. Russia, usually in the hopes that USA can drop 2 units directly onto the Russian front line, and be stack supported with Russian units/Air immediately. Basically any “originally German” territory on the eastern front could potentially be used this way, its rare, but might be a reason for preserving those American infantry in Szech for exactly this kind of late game play. A similar build can also be achieved by UK, with a tank rush. The danger here is that G takes the factory and stacks it eventually, but it can force heavy trading if USA or UK wants to ignite the dynamite, and then leave the Soviets to clean up the mess when they bounce, in W. Russia for example hehe
:-D
I think factory units are fun. Even at the OOB cost of 15 they can be entertaining. A good factory game on 1942.2 can be the among the most intense.
